Real Lives: We can’t let our family heroes just fade away

Engraver Alison Kesterton, from Thornton, with her family history book and one of her engravings made in memory of her Uncle George. Photo by James Maloney

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At weekends you are likely to find Allison Kesterton at the finishing line of marathons, road races, triathlons and iron men competitions – but not as a competitor.

Instead, the retired teacher helps run a family business of mobile engravers, traversing the country, helping people immortalise their achievements on trophies and medals.

But now she’s using her skills for a very different type of medallion; one commemorating loved ones who gave their lives for their country, and inspired by her own family’s service during World War I.

In doing so, Allison is following in the footsteps – almost a century on – of Liverpool sculptor and medallist Edward Carter Preston.

It was Carter Preston who, in 1918, won a hard-fought international competition (against 800 other entries) to design the bronze memorial plaques presented to the next-of-kin of British servicemen and women who died during World War I.

Alison Kesterton, from Thornton, adding the finishing touches to one of her WWI engravings Photo by James Maloney

While the plaques, nick-named the Dead Man’s Penny and given out to hundreds of thousands of families, were made of bronze, Allison works with polished Coniston slate.

“The Brathay Windermere marathon was one of the first things we did as an engraving business,” she explains. “But they said to us, ‘well our medals aren’t metal, they’re Lake District slate. Can you engrave on that?’”

The answer, it turned out, was yes. And when Allison, from Thornton, alighted upon the idea of Heirlooms 4 Heroes, it was the slate plaques which seemed ideal.

“It was about four or five years ago that I started doing our family history, on behalf of four cousins and my brother,” she explains.

“I was only really looking at our direct ancestors, but when it came to my grandparents I realised that they had both lost a brother in the war. This came as a surprise to all of us in the family, we were never aware of that before.”

One, Frederick Taylor, was heir-apparent to Liverpool’s Taylor’s Bread Company, which had more than 70 shops around the city at the time war broke out.

He joined one of the Pals battalions of the King’s Liverpool Regiment, but was killed at the Somme in July, 1916.

George Mooney was killed on October 9, 1917, and is remembered on the Menin Gate at Ypres.

“He was my grandmother’s younger brother,” says Allison. “He was number 13 in the family, and she was the 12th child. He emigrated to Australia just before the war with his older sister, and joined the Australian Imperial Force, much to her horror.

“Since I found them I’ve spoken to many people and have found that in many, or most families, their ‘heroes’ are all but forgotten, at least in name. They’re fading away, and I thought it would be nice to do something to stop that.”

Hence the idea for Heirlooms 4 Heroes, where people can have details of their loved ones’ war service engraved on a medallion which can then, she hopes, be passed on to future generations.

And it’s not simply World War I – although it is this year’s centenary of the outbreak of war which has spurred the idea – which is being commemorated. Allison has already had requests for plaques in memory of servicemen who died in World War II, and even Afghanistan and the Falklands.